Elgin homeowner goes on trial in fatal shooting of teen

On T-shirts that his family has worn to court, Guillermo Pineda is smiling. On his mother's cellphone, he is pictured as she last saw her 18-year-old son, dead from a bullet to the head.

The family wants justice for his death, but they're not sure they'll get it, even if the man who shot Pineda in Elgin on the Fourth of July last year is convicted in a trial scheduled to start Monday in Cook County Circuit Court.

Donald Rattanavong, 58, a homeowner and father of three, is charged with involuntary manslaughter and reckless discharge of a firearm in Pineda's death. The Pineda family has questioned why Rattanavong wasn't charged with murder.

Prosecutors declined to discuss the upcoming trial, but authorities have said that Rattanavong saw a group of young men approaching his property just before 11 p.m. that night. Worried that they might try to break into one of his family's cars, he came out of his house, yelled for the group to leave and fired three shots with a .25-caliber handgun.

Rattanavong's lawyer said his client intended only to warn the youths and fired into the air, but one of the bullets struck Pineda near his left ear.

Rattanavong didn't know he'd struck anyone until he went to the street to check his car and saw Pineda slumped over. Rattanavong then called police.

A friend who was with Pineda that night told the Tribune that the group had been looking for unlocked cars to burglarize. But the friend said they had stopped by the time of the shooting and were just walking by.

The case bears some similarity to the highly publicized Trayvon Martin shooting in Florida in that both involve a man who shot and killed an unarmed teen whom he saw as a threat. But Rattanavong's attorney pointed to what he called significant differences.

In the Martin case, neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman reportedly followed the teen, telling a 911 dispatcher that there had been some break-ins in his neighborhood and Martin was a "suspicious guy." Zimmerman, who claimed Martin attacked him and that he fired in self-defense, has not been charged with any crime.

When jury selection begins in Rattanavong's case Monday in Rolling Meadows branch court, defense attorney Lewis Gainor said he will try to make sure jurors don't have the Martin case in their minds.

"The cases are very different," Gainor wrote in an email. "My client was on his own property, defending his house and family from intruders who admitted to criminal activity. And my client never intended to shoot anyone."

Rattanavong is a former Buddhist monk who was married years ago. He emigrated from his native Laos to the United States, where he became a citizen and a second-shift factory machine operator, Gainor said. Rattanavong has lived 26 years in Elgin, where there is a sizable Laotian community, and is active in the Lao Buddhist Temple of Elgin. Since his arrest, he has been free on $5,000 bail.

"My client was devastated by it when it happened, and to this day he still feels terrible," Gainor said. "It's a tragedy when anybody dies, but that doesn't mean anybody's guilty of a crime, because accidents happen.

"Guillermo Pineda would still be alive today if he hadn't decided to break the law."

Pineda's sister, Lissette, has previously questioned the charges in the case, saying her brother was a good student and hard worker with no criminal record.

"He was very excited about graduating from Elgin High School," Lissette said. "He had three jobs. He was the man of the house."

Shortly after the shooting, Pineda's family made a makeshift memorial outside Rattanavong's house, and the two families exchanged words, Gainor said. Police resolved the confrontation peacefully.

None of the boys with Pineda that night was charged with a crime, and Rattanavong was not charged with any weapons violation, though authorities have said he was in possession of two guns and did not have a firearms owner's identification card.